Brew Master

The story says that "Dr. Pat,” as he’s known, employs analytical chemistry techniques such as mass spectrometry and gas chromatography to study the remnants of alcoholic beverages from around the globe, sometimes using samples as tiny as a quarter of a gram.

“Alcohol is so pivotal to human development—religions, social relations, medicine,” says McGovern, whose official title is scientific director of the museum’s Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health. “It’s a nexus of all sorts of things, both biological and cultural, that humans have been involved with, all over the world.”